WASHINGTON – In speech after speech this morning, U.S. senators stood to praise the 36-year career of Michigan's Carl Levin, referring to him as a "senator's senator" who taught many of them how a legislator should act and cheering a bipartisan approach many said should be a model for the chamber.

"I will think of Carl Levin fondly one way: his shoulders slightly stooped, his hand grasping a piece of paper, him walking quickly toward me with his head down, peering over his ubiquitous glasses saying, "Claire, have you read the language?" said Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., becoming emotional as she recounted her time with Levin on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"He understands the hazards of a misplaced comma. He understands the danger of using an 'and' instead of an 'or,'" said McCaskill. "He understands that is the essence of our work — that we craft language that lives up to our purpose and ideals."

It was just one of a series of remembrances for Levin, a Democratic former Detroit City Council president first elected to represent Michigan in 1978. Retiring after six 6-year terms, Levin, 80, delivered his farewell speech from the floor, urging colleagues to reject soundbite politics and — as he has done in the past — encouraging both parties to protect the political minority in the chamber.

Calling minority protections "the singular hallmark" of the Senate, he urged the chamber to turn back a precedent set by the Democratic majority he is part of last year to hamper minority filibusters on presidential nominations, saying it violated the Senate's set process for changing the rules.

"Protections of the minority make the Senate more than just a place to slow things down," he cautioned. "Those protections make it a place where we work things out. It is those protections which produce compromise."

For Levin's colleagues — including many of the who supported that change — it was yet another reminder of the Michigan Democrat's standing in the Senate and as chairman of the Armed Services Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has continued to churn out bipartisan products despite a hyperpartisan atmosphere.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., called him the "best lawyer in the entire Senate," saying when Levin "gives you his word, that's it. You don't worry." Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and a member of the Armed Services Committee, called Levin "a remarkable leader" who runs perhaps "the best run committee" in the Senate or House.

"Why can't the rest of the Senate work the way the Armed Services Committee works?" asked Sen. Joe Manchin, D-WV, and a junior member of the committee. "The reason is because we don't have enough Carl Levins."

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-NY, said simply that if someone was asked what the headline of today's proceedings was it would be, "Mr. Integrity retires from the Senate."

It seemed even to get to always composed Levin, reacting after the speeches and, earlier, with his voice cracking as he concluded his own farewell address and noticed his older brother, U.S. Rep. Sandy Levin, D-Royal Oak, sitting in the chamber nearby and his family sitting in the gallery.

Levin is Michigan's longest-serving U.S. senator ever but his accomplishments far outdistance his longevity. While remaining a staunch liberal, he has been an indefatigable supporter of the state's dominant auto industry and charted a reputation for bipartisanship in producing annual defense authorizations and running investigations into corporate wrongdoing.

Not only has he fought successfully against Pentagon overspending through the years, he has been part of congressional inquiries into the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, abusive credit card practices, the Enron scandal, offshore tax havens and more. Just this week, his work in trying to get to the bottom of treatment of detainees after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was noted in an Intelligence Committee report criticizing harsh interrogation techniques used by the CIA.

Levin, in a farewell speech that saw him praise his staff, said he and wife Barbara will stay in Michigan. He said congressional gridlock created by partisan politics was not part of his decision to retire and he departs with "unabashed confidence" in the Senate's ability to persevere.

Saying he hoped the next Congress would attack the "growing gap in our society between a fortunate few and the vast majority of Americans whose fortunes have stagnated or fallen," he called for improvements to education, worker training and research which should be paid for "by closing egregious tax loopholes that serve no economic purpose."

He decried the soundbite journalism practiced off the floor of the Senate, saying it only seems to exacerbate polarization in Washington. Comments uttered offhand to a reporter in a hallway, he said, "lead too often to less thoughtful discourse and that has helped drive rhetorical wedges between us."

But he reserved his strongest comments for the Democratic majority's use of the so-called nuclear option last year which broke the filibuster on presidential nominations. While Levin said there is no question any president regardless of party should be able to get their nominations confirmed, bypassing the regular process for changing the rules damages the nation and should be overturned..

"That precedent will not serve the country well in the future. It leaves the minority with no protection, diminishing the unique role of the Senate," he said, hoping it will be changed next year.

Several senators stepped forward to hug Levin as he concluded his speech, including Sen. Debbie Stabenow, who will become Michigan's senior senator with Levin's departure. She noted he "outlasted disco and the Soviet Union" and said Levin's "heart is in Detroit, where he was born and raised" and still lives.

"Everywhere you look," she said, "you see evidence of Sen. Carl Levin's hard work" from the riverfront in Detroit and funding for the M-1 Rail along Woodward Avenue to coastal and maritime preserves along the Great Lakes. "You have given so much and we are grateful," she said.

Several other senators spoke, Republican and Democrat alike. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont called him "perhaps the greatest intellect" in the Senate. Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland noted Levin was such a stickler for detail he sometimes sent him notes correcting typographical errors in his bill drafts.

Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin, who is also retiring, recounted their long friendship and hoped they could remain close friends despite "all the times the (University of Iowa) Hawkeyes beat the Wolverines in the future."

It was McCaskill's speech, however, which set the emotional tone for the morning, coming from a tough-as-nails former prosecutor who serves with Levin on Armed Services.

"This is a senators' senator. There are no sharp elbows. There is no heated rhetoric. ... Carl is methodically doing the grind it out work of legislating. He has the tools of a great senator: intellect, integrity, good manners and an unsurpassed work ethic."

"He has taught me more than I can ever say and I will try desperately to live up to the ideal he has set for all of us."

Contact TODD SPANGLER at 703-854-8947 or at tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on twitter at @tsspangler.